Entertainment: Atif Aslam

Munawar Taj

Muhammad Atif Aslam was born on March 12, 1983 in Wazirabad, Gujranwala, Punjab, pakistan and educated in Lahore and Rawalpindi. Atif Aslam is a Pakistani musician.
His first stage manifestation was in a fancy dress show at his school when he was in grade–1 where he performed as Imran Khan “Captain of Pakistan Cricket Team”. Since then cricket was like a passion to him.
At the age of 9 in 1991 he shifted to Rawalpindi/Islamabad where he continued his studies in Saint Pauls School. Atif returned to Lahore in 1995 where he continued his studies in Divisional Public School Model Town. Atif cleared his 10th grade in 14 years of age. Atif started his HSc in PAF College Lahore. He was on his college cricket team, where he represented his college in other cities. Beside his studies, he was putting his maximum time in practicing for professional cricket.
During his college life he began to take an interest in music. His eldest brother had a collection of more than 8,000 songs of almost all music genres. Atif developed a habit of listening to all kinds of music in his house. As a good learner he quickly grasped the control of voice but until that time he was not interested in singing, his passion was to enter in Pakistan cricket team as a fast bowler and he was right on track while practicing at the net at Shapes club Lahore where Imran Khan used to come and give tips to him for bowling.

One day he was singing with his friends at the college canteen. His friends insisted that he participate in the singing competition on Independence Day celebrations at PAF College Lahore and Sargodha in 1998. He performed there and won the competition.
After HSc, Atif joined Punjab Institute of Computer Science, Gulberg Campus. This time studies were much more demanding as compared to the previous ones. He had to sacrifice his time for the cricket.
His hobby of singing continued when he entered the singing competition of his college. There were a total of 8 participants. The media team entered Atif’s name in the competition at the last moment and he won the competition.
He encountered Goher at his college who was interested in music and was a talented guitarist. Together they used to practice a lot and started doing mini concerts for their friend. Atif used to sing Junoon’s and String’s songs at the concerts. They performed concerts for their college, McDonalds and some other restaurants as well.
Atif recorded the legendary song “AADAT” at Mekal Hassan’s Studio. Mekal injected his professionalism in the song to make it worth listening time after time. Atif formed the band and named the band as “JAL” which means water, the essence of life. The song got popularity on different musical websites on Pakistan. The song was also being on aired on major Radio channels of Pakistan.

"Umer Anwar” from Karachi approached Atif for making the video of “AADAT”. Aadat’s video was shot in one day in a warehouse at Karachi. The basic theme of the video was to attract people to listen to this song.
Atif released his first album Jal Pari on 18th July 2004 all over the nation by the country’s leading record label, Sound Master and IC records & Alhumdolillah the results declared it as the best selling album of the year within just 5 months of the release and it is still continuing.

Atif was really stretched up for all this because in the mean time he had the final exams of BCS and he cleared his Bachelorz in Computer Science ( hons) from University of Central Punjab.

Atif’s song WOH LAMHEY which he sang for the Bollywood movie ” Zeher” in 2005 is being considered among the ten best ever green songs of the Bollywood industry doing a business of One million Dollar plus only in India in terms of sales. This song opened the doors of bollywood for Atif and he is now one of the few singers of the nation who are doing play back singing in bollywood which is indeed a national pride for us. His 2nd song in bollywood “Aadat” made people addicted to his voice in the biggest nation of the world. Third song “Teray Bin” is also being considered as one of the most touching and heart melting numbers of the year 2006.
One of the most rare distinctions which atif earned for Pakistan was that his 3 songs ” Aaadat , Ehsaas and Yakeen were included in a Hollywood art movie ” MAN PUSH CART”. The movie got tremendous response in international film festivals and won FEPRISKI award in Europe
Atif has been nominated for a number of awards internationally during his short career which is again a matter of pride for the nation. His song Who Lamhay made him nominated as best singer for 2005 in almost all the film awards of bollywood including Film Fare Awrads , Zee Cine Awards , IIFA Awards etc etc .